1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device, a method and a computer program for carrying and housing two or more cartridges each having a magnetic storing medium, and a storage medium storing a same computer program, and more particularly to an improvement in positioning of a carrying mechanism for carrying the two or more cartridges.
The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-118761 filed on Apr. 23, 2003, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an example of the cartridge carrying/housing device, a magnetic tape library device is showed. Conventionally, various methods and units for positioning of a carrying mechanism employed in a magnetic tape library device are proposed. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564, a method is provided in which an end portion of a housing shelf that houses a medium or a reading and writing mechanism is detected by a reflection sensor attached to a carrying mechanism used to transport the medium and also a reference pattern on a flag mounted in parallel to a spline used to guide the carrying mechanism is detected by a flag sensor attached to the carrying mechanism and an interval between a pulse output from the reflection sensor and a pulse output from the flag sensor is measured by using an output pulse of an encoder indicating an amount of revolutions of a motor to drive the carrying mechanism and results from the measurements are stored in memory. When ordinary positioning operations are performed, a stop position of a motor is controlled according to positional data of a targeted shelf read from the memory.
In a magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564, in the case of a magnetic tape library device in which its housing shelves to house media are arranged in up-and-down directions and in right and left directions, even if positions for storing media are deviated in every housing shelf, a stop position of a motor obtained, in advance, from measurements for every housing shelf by using a reflection sensor is stored and, when ordinary positioning operations are performed, a motor stop position is controlled by using data stored in memory and, therefore, transport of a medium by using both a single carrying mechanism and a flag is made possible.
Moreover, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723, a method is provided in which, by providing a targeted flag in every acceptance port of a housing shelf that houses two or more media and by correcting position data in memory according to a signal which detects the targeted flag by using a photoelectric sensor attached in a cartridge carrying mechanism, positioning control in every pitch to a position of a subsequent adjacent targeted flag is exerted.
In a magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723, even in the case of the housing shelf that houses two or more media, since positioning control is exerted by mounting a targeted flag for every magnetic tape cartridge acceptance port of the housing shelf, by providing a reflection sensor or a like that detects an acceptance port of the housing shelf, unlike in the case of the technology stated in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564, storing of data obtained by, in advance, detecting a stop position of a motor in memory is not required and, therefore, the number of required sensors can be reduced more when compared with the case of the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564.
Moreover, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42724, a method is provided in which, by mounting a targeted flag only on each acceptance port of any one of rows and any one of columns of a housing shelf that houses two or more media and by correcting position data in memory based on a signal that detects the targeted flag by using a photoelectric sensor attached in a cartridge carrying mechanism section to obtain position data, positioning control is exerted.
In a magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42724, the number of required sensors can be reduced more when compared with the case of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564 and positioning control can be exerted at the smaller number of targeted flags when compared with the case of the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 10-92069, a method is provided in which, by mounting an accessor that takes out a medium from a specified cell, holds it and moves it to a record reproducing section or that takes out a medium from the record reproducing section, holds it and moves it to the specified cell on a cartridge housing section where two or more cells having the medium are arranged regularly in up-and-down directions and in right and left directions and by providing a positioning flag having a notch at an intermediate position between cells being adjacent to each other in order to stop the accessor at a position corresponding to a specified cell in the cartridge housing section and by detecting the notch using a positioning sensor, positioning of a cartridge carrying mechanism is performed.
In the magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 10-92069, the number of required sensors can be reduced more when compared with the case of the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564 and positioning control can be exerted at the smaller number of targeted flags when compared with the case of the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723.
However, the magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564 has a problem. That is, though one set of flags used to perform positioning of the carrying mechanism which transports a medium is sufficient and mounting of the flag for every magnetic tape cartridge acceptance port in the housing shelf is not required, a reflection sensor used to detect each acceptance port and memory used to store a position of each acceptance port, in addition to the flag sensor, are necessary, which, as a result, causes the device to be complicated. Moreover, in order to detect whether or not the magnetic tape cartridge is housed in each housing slot of the housing shelf, another sensor being different from those described above is required additionally.
Also, the magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723 has a problem. That is, since the targeted flag for each magnetic tape cartridge acceptance port of the housing shelf in order to perform the positioning of the carrying mechanism used to transport the medium is mounted, unlike in the case of the magnetic tape cartridge device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 04-319564, the sensor to detect each acceptance port and the memory to store position data are not required, which enables the device to be simplified. However, in order to detect whether or not the magnetic tape cartridge is housed in each housing slot of the housing shelf, another sensor being different from the sensor used to detect a targeted flag is required additionally.
Also, the magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42724 has a problem. That is, since the targeted flag is attached only to part of each magnetic tape cartridge acceptance port of the housing shelf, the number of targeted flags can be reduced more when compared with the magnetic tape cartridge device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723, which enables the device to be simplified. However, in order to detect whether or not the magnetic tape cartridge is housed in each housing slot of the housing shelf, another sensor being different from the sensor used to detect a targeted flag is required additionally.
Furthermore, the magnetic tape library device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 10-92069 has a problem. That is, since a positioning flag having a notch at an intermediate position between adjacent cells is mounted in order to perform positioning of a carrying mechanism used to transport a medium and positioning is performed by detecting the notch using the positioning sensor. However, the number of targeted flags can be reduced more when compared with the magnetic tape cartridge device disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-42723, which enables the device to be simplified. However, in order to detect whether or not the magnetic tape cartridge is housed in each housing slot of the housing shelf, another sensor being different from the sensor used to a targeted flag is required additionally.